Noble New year gesture from DHA

Dubai, UAE: The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) is marking the New Year with a unique gesture.

It has launched a new scheme called Dirham Waqeya starting January 1 to encourage its employees to donate a small portion of their salaries every month to the medical treatment of needy dependents, especially elderly parents.

Aged parents

Salim Bin Lahej, Head of Donation Affairs in DHA’s Director General’s Office, told XPRESS: “DHA employees and their spouses and children are covered by insurance. But the insurance may not always provide a 100 per cent cover. Also, we have found families struggling to cope with the medical treatment of aged parents, when they are either on a visit here or are in their home countries. So we thought why not help each other during such contingencies.”

Bin Lahej said DHA has over 10,000 employees and even small individual donations would go a long way. “Donations will be purely voluntary and can start from as little as Dh10 a month. All that an employee has to do is fill up a form and specify the amount that he or she wishes to donate every month. This will be cut from the employee’s salary and deposited into a separate account created for Dirham Waqeya.”

He said a special committee will be appointed to implement the scheme. “They will screen all applications received and decide on the beneficiaries depending on a number of factors. The scheme will be very transparent and we hope it will make a difference.”

Bin Lahej said even where family members have insurance, the cover may sometimes be inadequate. “There could be a case where only 60 to 80 per cent of the expenses would be covered. There could be a case where a needy family member may require dental treatment which is not covered by insurance at all. So the committee will assess the situation and take a call.”